That same evening, at sunset, the Arabella was warped out of the swarm of lesser shipping that had collected about her anchorage. With Blood, himself, in command, with Pitt for sailing master and Ogle for master gunner, she set sail from Cayona, followed closely by the Elizabeth. The Maria Gloriosa was already hull down on the horizon.
Beating up against gentle easterly breezes, the two buccaneer ships, the Arabella and her consort, were off Point Palmish on the northern coast of Hispaniola by the following evening. Hereabouts, where the Tortuga Channel narrows to a mere five miles between Palmish and Portugal Point, Captain Blood decided to take up his station for what was to be done.
III
At about the time that the Arabella and the Elizabeth were casting anchor in that lonely cove on the northern coast of Hispaniola, the Béarnais was weighing at Port au Prince. The smells of the place offended the delicate nostrils of Madame de Saintonges, and on this account — since wives so well endowed are to be pampered — the Chevalier cut short his visit even at the cost of scamping the King's business. Glad to have set a term to this at last, with the serene conviction of having discharged his mission in a manner that must deserve the praise of Monsieur de Louvois, the Chevalier now turned his face towards France and his thoughts to lighter and more personal matters.
With a light wind abeam, the progress of the Béarnais was so slow that it took her twenty–four hours to round Cape St Nicholas at the Western end of the Tortuga Channel; so that it was somewhere about sunset on the day following that of her departure from Port au Prince when she entered that narrow passage.
Monsieur de Saintonges at the time was lounging elegantly on the poop, beside a day–bed set under an awning of brown sailcloth. On this day–bed reclined his handsome Creole wife. There was about this superbly proportioned lady, from the deep mellowness of her voice to the great pearls entwined in her glossy black hair, nothing that did not announce her opulence. It was enhanced at present by profound contentment in this marriage in which each party so perfectly complemented the other. She seemed to glow and swell with it as she lay there luxuriously, faintly waving her jewelled fan, her rich laugh so ready to pay homage to the wit with which her bridegroom sought to dazzle her.
Into this idyll stepped, more or less abruptly, and certainly intrusively, Monsieur Luzan, the Captain of the Béarnais, a lean, brown, hook–nosed man something above the middle height, whose air and carriage were those of a soldier rather than a seaman. As he approached, he took the telescope from under his arm and pointed aft with it.
'Yonder is something that is odd,' he said. And he held out the glass. 'Take a look, Chevalier.'
Monsieur de Saintonges rose slowly, and his eyes followed the indication. Some three miles to westward a sail was visible.
'A ship,' he said, and languidly accepted the proffered telescope. He stepped aside, to the rail, whence the view was clearer and where he could find a support on which to steady his elbow.